ENGINEERD wrote:I honestly have never heard that opinion am I really that delusional???

Notre Dame is a great school with a great reputation, but its lay-reputation is not so great that people's eyes will widen when you say it in conversation. As you said yourself, your desire to say, "I went to Notre Dame" is rooted in nothing more than shallowness. I could understand this desire for lay prestige if we were talking about, say, Columbia and University of Chicago. Clearly dropping Columbia in casual conversation is going to garner you some lay-prestige, whereas many Illinoisans don't even know the difference between the University of Illinois in Chicago and University of Chicago.

Notre Dame probably has more lay prestige than UCI. But all I'm saying is this:

1. Don't let lay prestige determine your law school.2. Notre Dame's lay prestige is not mind-blowing. You aren't going to get panties to drop by saying Notre Dame like you would with Harvard, Yale, Columbia, etc.

As you probably already know, Romo, along with desert fox, troll TLS to knock down ND at every opportunity. Check his history. The only thing true about his statement that he does not go to a rival school is that WUSTL is not in ND's league.

(assuming that the OP is not from CA and that the OP wants patent law)

The OP should go to the cheapest option overall (including COA). This would likely be either UCI or Notre Dame.

Why? The Loyola Patent Fair. S/he will have the opportunity to meet with CA employers there even if they don't OCI at UCI or Notre Dame (I'm assuming both will have relatively few major employers from CA - for different reasons).

There is no indication what the cut off be with employers with UCI, but the OP knows that Notre Dame generally has a top 1/3 cut off for some top employers.

I would suggest the OP decide which one s/he likes better, UCI or Notre Dame, and go with that one - but also keep in mind which one is cheaper.

*On a side note, very few girls would treat a guy differently if he said he went to Notre Dame law school or the University of Chicago law school. In fact, the guy would probably have to explain why U of C is a better school. I feel like if you have to explain yourself, then the "lay prestige" isn't there. However you shouldn't choose a school based off of lay prestige to begin with.

Aberzombie1892 wrote:S/he will have the opportunity to meet with CA employers there even if they don't OCI at UCI or Notre Dame (I'm assuming both will have relatively few major employers from CA - for different reasons).

How much do you want CA? If you want it bad enough, UCI is the no-brainer. It's still a hair of a gamble since they're not very established yet.

If you are truly open to other areas apart from CA, I'd *probably* pick ND (pains me to say), since I would say the 24K saved over the 3 years probably justifies the difference, in your case. But again, it's not so much difference in $$ that you shouldn't put some amount of preference into it. If you click or "jive" better at one of the schools and think you'd be happier there... then pick that one.

I've lived in Los Angeles my whole life and never have I considered Notre Dame a "name-dropper" in any sense. Sure, it's a great school, but I only know that because I know a bit about universities. I've never seen anyone get wide-eyed at the sound of "Notre Dame." Not exactly the school you make a life-decision on based on it's "prestige."

Furthermore, anyone who has heard of UCI Law has looked at me with excitement and surprise. "Isn't that really really hard to get into?" "Isn't that supposed to be an amazing school?" "Yeah, yeah! That Chem... Chem... right, that guy! Awesome!"

Of course, not many people know about UCI. But that's the best part. You get to spread the word as a living example. Tell them to look it up. There's been nothing but praise from the academic community and the press.

Anyways, hate to repeat myself, but as I said earlier you should really look into UCI's Prof. Burke. He's an absolute national monster in IP.

Not attending WUSTL, UCI or ND. Lived in California my entire life. ND has a great reputation here. I can't say the same for UCI. The undergrad does not have a good reputation, and the law school is too new to have any form of reputation. I wonder what would happen if the dean left, or scholarships dried up. If i wanted Southern California and could not get into UCLA or USC, I might go to USD before UCI.

Aberzombie1892 wrote:(assuming that the OP is not from CA and that the OP wants patent law)

The OP should go to the cheapest option overall (including COA). This would likely be either UCI or Notre Dame.

Why? The Loyola Patent Fair. S/he will have the opportunity to meet with CA employers there even if they don't OCI at UCI or Notre Dame (I'm assuming both will have relatively few major employers from CA - for different reasons).

There is no indication what the cut off be with employers with UCI, but the OP knows that Notre Dame generally has a top 1/3 cut off for some top employers.

I would suggest the OP decide which one s/he likes better, UCI or Notre Dame, and go with that one - but also keep in mind which one is cheaper.

*On a side note, very few girls would treat a guy differently if he said he went to Notre Dame law school or the University of Chicago law school. In fact, the guy would probably have to explain why U of C is a better school. I feel like if you have to explain yourself, then the "lay prestige" isn't there. However you shouldn't choose a school based off of lay prestige to begin with.

Aberzombie1892 wrote:(assuming that the OP is not from CA and that the OP wants patent law)

The OP should go to the cheapest option overall (including COA). This would likely be either UCI or Notre Dame.

Why? The Loyola Patent Fair. S/he will have the opportunity to meet with CA employers there even if they don't OCI at UCI or Notre Dame (I'm assuming both will have relatively few major employers from CA - for different reasons).

There is no indication what the cut off be with employers with UCI, but the OP knows that Notre Dame generally has a top 1/3 cut off for some top employers.

I would suggest the OP decide which one s/he likes better, UCI or Notre Dame, and go with that one - but also keep in mind which one is cheaper.

*On a side note, very few girls would treat a guy differently if he said he went to Notre Dame law school or the University of Chicago law school. In fact, the guy would probably have to explain why U of C is a better school. I feel like if you have to explain yourself, then the "lay prestige" isn't there. However you shouldn't choose a school based off of lay prestige to begin with.

Notre Dame = Overrated. You know how most people close to a school overrate how good it is ( like Nashville folks do with Vandy and St. Louisans do with Wash U)? Well the opposite is true with Notre Dame. The rest of the country seems to think it is some golden city on a hill, while most of us in the Midwest are like *yawn.* If some sense of prestige is guiding your decision, let me knock you off that horse right away.

@ bolded- everyone in nashville and surrounding HATES vanderbilt. students are instructed to avoid saying where they're calling from if they're trying to get help from anyone in the community for an assignment. i know it's a small point, but that's the way it is there, fwiw.

Ok so am I am very very very close to choosing Notre Dame over UCI. The reasons:

UCI is a brand new school. Although I think it will be a good school one day I think it will land right next to UC davis and hastings in the rankings. Although there are benefits to attending a new school (creating organizations and such) I think the cons out weigh the pros.

For someone who wants to return to the southern california region many people suggest I attend UCI. The reason for this is my job prospects would be better because UCI's reputation relies on the first few classes employment. I honestly do not think many of you who voted for UCI would attend a brand new untested school when it came time to make the decision. I have accepted that my job prospects would be better but at the end of the day I just don't want to attend a brand new school.

I want the traditional law experience and when I am 40 I don't want to tell people I went to a school that is now ranked in the 30-50-who knows range when I could have attended ND.

That said, am I completely out of my mind for not going to a school were I am almost guaranteed a job????????

UCI....it's in Cali, is a huge discount, you can get in-state after a year, it's gonna be a powerhouse, it will rank T50 for sure and it's in the region you want....plus it's cool to say you were a founding student at a prestigious law school (irrelevant, but still cool)

notme wrote:As you probably already know, Romo, along with desert fox, troll TLS to knock down ND at every opportunity. Check his history. The only thing true about his statement that he does not go to a rival school is that WUSTL is not in ND's league.

You're right! Wustl is not in ND's league because it's above them according to virtually every USNWR ranking from undergrad to med to business to engineering.The only thing ND has over WUSTL is division I sports, but on a website like "Top Law Schools.com," do you really care about the fact that ND used to be good at college football?

And for the record, I chose WUSTL over ND like many others for obvious reasons. I get sick and tired of ND trolls inflating their school's reputation and portability on here. You're not top 20, and you haven't ever been for a reason.